Internet companies now see India-centric sites as money spinner
N SHIVAPRIYA
MUMBAI, DECEMBER 10: It is now clear that internet properties can fetch fantastic valuations unheard of in the traditional business world. With IndiaWorld being valued nearly 500 times its Rs 1.3 crore sales in a mega deal clinched early this week, having an internet company has suddenly become the quickest route to becoming a millionaire.
The boom has already begun in many ways. Everyone, from big business houses to venture capitalists (VCs), are eager to grab a portion of the pie. Dewang Mehta of Nasscom estimates India-centric content on the web will grow at a blistering 56 per cent to 25,000 sites or more in a year's time. This year, India content on the web grew from a handful to around 10,000 sites, providing a variety of information - from cars to contests.
"Earlier I had to search for India specific sites. Now I get at least two calls a day about some new site or the other," says Vijay Mukhi who writes a column on the net for a Mumbai newspaper. Mukhi, founder member of the Internet Users Club ofIndia, feels that a lot of people will now enter the business motivated by money. "The feeling is, if Rajesh Jain can make Rs 500 crore, they can make at least Rs 100 crore."
The "hurricane" as he calls the sudden flood of new sites, will also attract a lot of serious players with big capital. eVentures, a partnership between News Corp and Softbank, has been specifically set up to fund internet companies. Big business houses which were earlier reluctant to invest even in a company website, are now rushing to set up portals (websites like Yahoo!). Recently, S Kumars, a seasoned player in the textiles segment, announced its subsidiary S Kumars.com would set up infrastructure to facilitate e-commerce transactions at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore.
"A lot of people who were earlier moonlighting (holding a job and working part-time on their site) will now start looking at committing more resources," says Viraj Savant, director (marketing) of DBS Internet, an e-business solutions provider (EBSP). In fact, companieslike DBS which set up the machinery for e-business, will be the real beneficiaries of the boom. The company now plans to be more selective and choose only clients with long term commitments.
However, warns Sanjay Hinduja of Online Solutions another EBSP, "The (India World) deal cannot be taken as a benchmark for future internet valuations. IndiaWorld had the first mover advantage. Speed is very important in this business."
Hinduja himself has hit upon a clever way to participate in the mania for internet properties. Instead of charging clients a fee, he picks up a stake in promising companies. "It could vary from 5 to 20 per cent," he says. So far, he has taken stakes in two internet companies - one of them based in the United States - through this route.
An investment banker, Hinduja, wised up to the boom before valuations hit the roof, and bought Online Solutions (India Online earlier) in December 1998 for an undisclosed sum. The internet scenario is vastly different from what it was two years ago.While there was only Expressindia, Rediff, IndiaWorld and few others a couple of years ago, momentum started picking up early this year with sites like homeindia.com, hungama.com and contests2win.com getting prominence. "These were the real entrepreneurs. The next generation will be less visionary and more mercenary," jokes Mukhi...... indian-express.com |
